Three for the 4th

Tired of scrolling through Pinterest looking for recipes for the 4th of July? We've got your back.

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Our staff has scoured the internet in search of fun recipes, and we made a meal of some of the best! We’ve got the whole meal covered—from a starred and striped salad to a fun twist on the classic hotdog. It'll be the most patriotic meal you’ll eat all year.

Red, White and Blueberry Salad

Ingredients:

• 8 cups lettuce or a different salad mix
• 1 cup blueberries
• 1 cup chopped strawberries
• 2 ounces of crumbled feta cheese
• Dressing of choice

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients. Add dressing.
2. Serves 4.

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Victory Dogs

Ingredients:

• 1 package of 8 hotdogs
• 1 can refrigerated breadstick dough
• 1 block cheddar cheese
• 8 wooden skewers (10-12 inches long)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Skewer the hot dogs and leave roughly 1.5 inches sticking out of the top.
3. Wrap a strip of breadstick dough around each hot dog and place on baking pan.  
4. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, or until breadstick dough is golden brown.
5. While the dogs are cooking, slice the block of cheese into slices. They should be roughly 1 centimeter thick. Cut stars out of the cheese slices. (Depending on the size of your cookie cutter, you may only get 1 star per slice.)
6. After about 2-3 minutes cooling, attach the stars to the top of the skewers.
7. Serves 4 (two hotdogs each).

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Festive Fruit Pizza

Ingredients:

• 1 package of sugar cookie dough
• 2 cups chopped strawberries
• 1 package raspberries
• 3 kiwi
• 16 ounces of cream cheese
• ½ cup powdered sugar
• Handful of large chocolate chips

*Ingredients note: You can substitute the fruit we've suggested with other types of fruit, if you'd prefer.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a cookie sheet or line it with parchment paper.
2. Press cookie dough into a thin, large circle.
3. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. Let it cool completely.
4. While baking the dough, beat cream cheese and powdered sugar together.
5. Once the cookie is cool, spread the cream cheese mixture on top.
6. Top with fruit in desired pattern. We chose a watermelon, with a green rim around the outside of the pizza and red fruit decorating the inside with chocolate chips for seeds.
7. Serves 8.

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Overall, we’d say the recipes were easy and (mostly) successful. One tip we discovered was that you might not want to use a pizza stone for the cookie (crust). A regular non-stick cookie sheet works best. The following was the result of our taste test. The entire cookie stuck to the pan. We think it was because we doubled the recipe and allowed the cookie dough to run to the edges of the 16-inch pizza stone. There was no easy way to cut the cookie without making a huge mess. But trust us, it tasted way better than it looks and this recipe will definitely not end up on a list of #PinterestFails. 

Tweet @AuburnCampusRec to share your recreations of the recipes above or any of your own! Enjoy and have a happy 4th!

Be well, Auburn.

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Photography: Jack P.